The Marked Men 3-Book Collection: Rule, Jet, Rome - Jay Crownover

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      “Shaw, every guy in the bar was circling you like you were bait in the water during shark week. You know you look good, what I think shouldn’t matter. What should matter is why you’re suddenly dressing, looking, and acting like a different person. What’s going on with you?”

      I wanted to scowl up at him but that seemed too hard, especially when his T-shirt rode up in the back and my arm was brushing against nice, warm skin. I stumbled off the curb as we made our way down another block and his familiar Victorian apartment building came into sight. He pulled me in tighter to his side and I didn’t even try to hide the soft sigh that fell out of me.

      “Everyone thinks I need to act a certain way—you, my parents, your parents, the girls from work, Gabe. Everybody always wants me to be this, do that, walk this line, toe that line and I’m sick of it. Maybe for just once I just want to act how I want and feel how I want to feel without someone judging me and expecting something from me in return.”

      He was quiet as we walked up the front steps to the apartment. Maybe he was trying to translate my drunken speech because even I could hear that I was slurring between my chattering teeth. He pushed the door open and twisted the lock. It was warm inside so I shook off my jacket and pushed my shaking hands through my hair. I turned my blurry eyes on him and almost swallowed my tongue. He was leaning back against the door watching me with hooded eyes. He wasn’t throwing sarcastic barbs at me or ignoring me, he was just watching me. I blew out a breath and tasted the tartness of the cranberry juice across my tongue.

      I took a few unsteady steps toward him. He was so tall that I had to stand on the very tips of my toes to reach his ear. I put a hand on his shoulder and one on the door beside his head and whispered, “It’s my birthday, Rule.”

      I expected him to move away, to gently shove me to the side, but he uncrossed his arms and placed his hands on either side of my waist. Those pale eyes flared for a second and his mouth twisted down, making the hoop on the side of his mouth glint at me. “I’m sorry, Shaw. I had no idea.”

      I shrugged it off and moved a step closer to him. “It’s okay—my own family didn’t even remember it.” I pressed so close to him that my chest was flat against his. I could feel that the close proximity was having an effect on him. If I hadn’t had to concentrate on my balance since I was on my toes I might have grinned at that. All I had ever wanted in life was to affect him, to get him to feel something, anything, other than simple tolerance for me.

      “I know what you can do for me to make this officially the best birthday ever.” I wanted to sound sure, to sound sexy and sultry, but I’m pretty sure I just sounded horny and drunk. I didn’t care. I was here—the real me—the one who wanted him so desperately and always had. There was no chance at putting her back in her cage now.

      I didn’t think—didn’t reason—just used the grip I had on him to pull myself up even taller and plant my mouth solidly over his. The ring in his lip was shockingly cold against my own; the rest of him was undeniably hot and hard. It was everything I had ever wanted, and even though he didn’t kiss me back, I still ranked it up there as the best birthday gift ever. I went to settle back down on my booted feet when something shifted, something changed, and Rule went from a passive recipient to something else entirely.

      CHAPTER 5

       Rule

      Shaw was drunk—really, really drunk. She was also dressed like something out of a retro fantasy and had on those boots that make me want to drool. I had been grumpy and moody all week—my friends had noticed, my clients had noticed, the chick I’d walked out on on Saturday night noticed. I couldn’t put my finger on it. At first I thought it was Rome; I was pissed he wouldn’t just tell Mom to grow the fuck up and get over her shit. I wanted him to spend time with me, to have some good times before shipping back out to the desert, but he wasn’t ready to give up hope that he could fix our fractured family, and I didn’t want to fight with my brother, the freaking war hero. I thought maybe I just needed to get laid, but the hot blonde I went home with on Saturday had started to annoy me in the car on the way to her place. By the time we got to her room the last thing I wanted was to see her naked, so I bolted. Sunday came and went and my mood got darker. The guys suggested going to the Goal Line, thinking maybe I needed a dose of verbal ass-kicking from an ice-cold blonde to get me out of my moodiness, but I refused and instead spent the day brooding and playing Call of Duty. I had no idea what my problem was, but now, with Shaw all but plastered to the front of me, I was starting to get an idea.

      I hadn’t been able to get the sight of Shaw and her ruffle-covered ass out of my head for days. Call me shallow, call me a chauvinistic pig, but there was just something about seeing her all sexed up and barely dressed that had made me look at her in an entirely new light. It was like being introduced to her all over again; the prim and proper little lady that Remy had worshipped overtaken by a sexy coed that had me up at night thinking X-rated thoughts.

      Now with her looking at me all big-eyed and swaying unsteadily, I knew the right thing to do was fix her up and send her on her way. But then she kissed me and I was pretty sure I forgot my own name. I was too stunned to react at first—I mean, I had kissed hundreds of girls and there was always something nice about it, but Shaw kicked nice to the curb and went right into insanity inducing.

      After I got enough blood back from below my belt, I realized that she was pulling away or, rather, falling away. And yes, I was a certified asshole because I knew she was sauced and I knew she was, for all intents and purposes, still my twin brother’s girl. None of that stopped me because she tasted sweet and tangy and felt better than anything I could remember in my entire life. She had on some kind of slinky top that was rubbing erotically across my chest, plus her hands were wrapped around my neck and playing with the last pointy spike of my new haircut—it was all going right to my dick, which was screaming at me to do something. So like a bastard I did.

      I picked her up because she was short and I was tired of bending over. Her skirt was tight so I had no problem moving it up her shapely calves so that she could get her legs wrapped around me. She made a gasping noise and I maybe, possibly, would have stopped what I was doing to her mouth if she hadn’t used her new position to grind against my hard-on and get her hands up under my T-shirt. Of all the things I had ever thought about Shaw, the fact that she would go off like a bottle rocket when touched just right was not one of them. She always looked so cool and so collected, but now she was tugging my shirt off over my head and doing something with her tongue on my lip ring that was making my eyes cross. I knew—logically at least—that Nash was probably only a few minutes from walking in the door with her roommate and this had to stop. There was no way I would be able to live with myself if I let this get out of hand while she was drunk. I set her down on unsteady feet when I felt her push away from me, hoping that maybe, just maybe, even wasted she would be the voice of reason.

      She just looked at me through hooded eyes the color of jade and licked her lips, which looked very thoroughly worked over—courtesy of yours truly. Nothing on this planet had ever been hotter.

      She started pulling at the ties on her silky top and moved past me toward my bedroom. I forgot that she knew where my bedroom was, that she knew her way around my place—she had a damn key. It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her to stop, to tell her I would just put her to bed and she could just sleep whatever this was off, but as I followed behind her the blue top hit the floor followed by the black camisole and then the skirt that did amazing things to her ass. I picked up the discarded clothing and tried to talk myself off the ledge. I couldn’t do this, wouldn’t do this. It was bad enough I had kissed her like a sex-crazed lunatic. I needed to get control back, like yesterday. This was Shaw, not some bar bimbo. Not someone I could mercilessly kick out in the morning and never speak to again.

      “Shaw.” She turned to look at me over her shoulder and I think I blacked out for a second. I dropped the pile of clothes in my hands on the floor and tried to unstick my tongue from the roof of my mouth. I had seen a lot of girls naked, but none of them were this girl; none of them came anywhere close. Somehow she managed to get out of those tall motorcycle

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